Systems and methods for depth migrating seismic data are known. For example, conventional techniques include the implementation of Gaussian beams to model the propagation of seismic waves through a seismic volume of interest in a migration. Such migrations may be referred to as Gaussian beam migration. Conventional techniques that implement other techniques to model seismic wave propagation are also known (e.g., finite difference methods).
Migration techniques are formulated to be applied in different data domains, such as the common-offset domain, the common-shot domain, and/or other domains. Each domain typically has strengths and weaknesses with respect to computational efficiency, image quality, flexibility of application, support of velocity analysis, etc. For instance, common-shot domain migration tends to be more universally and directly applicable to seismic data because the data are recorded in the common-shot domain. However, migrating data in the common-shot domain may be relatively computationally intensive.
In Gaussian beam migration techniques, beam tables are determined by ray tracing through a provisional Earth model to describe one or more parameters of the Gaussian beams (or other type(s) of beams) being used to model the seismic waves. The beam tables are then used in the migration to determine an image of one or more reflectors within the seismic volume of interest. Conventional techniques for computing and using beam tables tend to be processing intensive.